My Canoe Camping Trip

[JohnRich 4]

1) Me! Relaxing after successfully running “riffles”, which can be seen behind me, with Natalie coming through next. “Riffles” is a funny name for shallow water that cascades over the underlying rocks. You often bump the bottom of boat through those stretches. But it’s fun to try and detect the best line through the riffles, to avoid the rocks. If someone in front of you gets hung-up, you try a different path.

2) Louis appears to be racing downhill at a steep angle! When I first came around the corner and saw this view on both sides of the canyon, I had to go "oh no...", because it looked like it was going to be log-flume bad. But actually, there was a weird optical illusion here. The angle of those striations in the layers of rock made it look like you should be rushing downhill at a high speed. But in fact, the water wasn't that fast here. The explanation is that the rock layers are angled upward, while your brain wants to assume that they are level, therefore making it just appear and feel like you are actually rushing downhill.

3) A neat cave up on the cliff: We didn't have time to try and explore this, as we had a deadline to make: to meet our shuttle driver who was picking us up. We didn't have time to explore Fern Canyon either, darn it. Yeah, even in the wilderness, you have to put up with steenkin' deadlines.

I'll finish up the canoeing portion of the trip tomorrow. Then if you want to hang around and view some photos from the land-hiking, I'll post some of those too.

[JohnRich 4]

1) The light at the end of the tunnel, er... canyon. We're finally about to exit the 10-mile long Santa Elena Canyon, and pop out on the other side of the mesa into somewhat open country once again.

2) The take-out. You pay an outfitter handsomely to bring a 4WD passenger van and canoe trailer out to a gravel bar to pick you up. We were right on time, as pre-arranged, and he was there waiting for us. Next, you unload all your gear and throw it in the van, and load all the canoes on the trailer. Then he drives you back to his shop where your personal cars are waiting for you.

3) My excellent group photo which I arranged on the morning of Day 3, with a dramatic background. It took some doing to get everyone rounded up at the same time on a busy morning with everyone racing to pack their boats and not be the last one holding everyone else up. From left to right we have:

- Terry: an archaeologist.
- John Rich: a former mainframe computer geek.
- Natalie: a librarian. She’s 5’2” tall but a heck of an outdoorswoman. We tell lots of “short” jokes around her, so she stands on a rock here to play along and gain some height.
- Dana: a retired NASA engineer and locksmith.
- Donna: a retired schoolteacher.
- Louis: a city records administrator.

Schoolteachers, librarians, computer geeks and paper-pushers: Not exactly the type of people you would expect to be rugged outdoorsmen! But they are all highly experienced canoeists and campers, and a true pleasure to spend time with in the wilderness.

And that wraps up the canoeing portion of my story. Continue on if you want to see some land-hiking photos.

[JohnRich 4]

The purpose of much of the hiking was to figure out where the farmers used to live in the area, as documentation indicates dozens of families and a few villages, yet home ruins seem to be very scarce. So we were looking for "ghost towns". We hiked up several creek beds which drain down into the Rio Grande River.

Modern occupation of the area ran from about 1880 to 1930, when there were several productive mines in the area, employing hundreds of miners. Mexican farmers moved into the area to grow food and raise livestock to support the mining operations. When the mines were no longer productive, the miners moved on, and the farmers faded away.

1) Hiking up a creek bed. An old 1904 map showed a dirt road through here, so we were trying to find it, figuring any old villages would be along the road. The trace was still visible in places.

Along the way you find cool stuff.

2) A fossilized clam shell.

3) A saber-tooth tiger skull! No, actually, I think it's a javelina (peccary). Nice tusks. And to think that I have been close enough to these critters to whack them with my walking stick while they were in a feeding frenzy over another camper’s food. Ack!

4) This item looks like a palm-sized cutter/scraper with a sharpened edge that might have been created by an Indian for utility purposes, like cutting meat or scraping a hide. It was found in a midden field (debris field), with lots of flakes of flint, where the Indians must have once worked, next to a spring.

[shropshire 0]

Sounds like another great trip with fun friends John.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[davedlg 0]

Looks beautiful. I have always wanted to run the Rio Grand in Big Bend. Hopefully some day I'll make it down there.

[JohnRich 4]

Oh yeah, I was supposed to be finding old home sites.

1 & 2) In six miles of hiking, up one side of a wide creek bed, and down the other, we found only two home sites. These are not marked on any modern maps. The second one has only an outline of rocks on the ground remaining.

3) A close-up view of the crude stone work which is typical of many of the homes. These are usually one-room jobs, about the size of a modern bedroom. In this one, you can see where there was once a window underneath the wide stone.

More to come tomorrow...

[JohnRich 4]

1) What the heck are these two rows of neatly stacked rocks?

2) Kid homes! "Kids", as in baby goats. This is a close-up of one. The ranchers would put the babies inside these rock shelters during the day, while mom was away foraging for food, to protect them from the sun and from birds of prey. When mom returned home in the evening, they would emerge from their shelters to nurse.

3) A tree chewed down by a beaver! You can actually see the individual teeth marks from each bite. I figure it must be like eating corn on the cob. It looks fairly recent too. I've seen signs of beaver like this out here along the Rio Grande in the desert, but have never had the good luck to spot one first hand. I don't know how the dumb beaver thought he was going to move this giant log after he knocked it down...

[JohnRich 4]

1) This is an old cemetery site located atop a small knoll, next to a ranch site, overlooking the creekbed. There were six graves atop the hill. The camera aim is rough, as the top of the knoll was too small for a good all-encompassing photo, so I had to hold the camera up high over my head and aim by "feel", in order to get the best angle.

2) Close-up of two graves: The ruins of a wooden cross can be seen in the one on the left. The one on the right consists of a crude pile of bricks, which came from a manufacturer called "LeClede", in St. Louis. They didn't even bother to line the bricks up neatly, as I would have done.

Tomorrow we'll visit a mystery brick structure...

[flyangel2 2]

Thanks so much for sharing
I have my first backpack trip for the season planned in a few weeks. Can't wait to get out on the trail and sleep under the stars.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[JohnRich 4]

The mystery building.

According to an old 1904 map, there was a building out there somewhere, and we should be real close to it, but we couldn't find it. I climbed up a small hill and scanned the mesquite brush with binoculars, and found a small segment of brick wall just barely visible. We beat the thorny brush to find it, and here it is.

1) We don't know what the heck the building was. It's made of somewhat modern brick, with nicely done mortar. Note the evenly spaced arched holes at the base. There were seven of these holes.

2) A close-up of one of the holes, with a rectangular olive-green stain around it: What the heck was this place?

Bricks were hard to come by out here. They had to be brought by train to the nearest railhead at Marathon, and then by truck for about 80 miles over crude roads. So whatever this place was, it as worth a lot of effort and expense to someone.

Someone has suggested it was a lime kiln. That involves taking limestone, of which there is plenty in the area, and cooking it for days with wood, of which there is little. The resulting powder is useful for soil conditioning for crops, and for making concrete.

Has anyone seen anything like this before?

[JohnRich 4]

The mine shaft.

One of the USGS topo maps for the area has a little square symbol on the map with a diagonal black triangle inside it, which is the symbol for a mine shaft. I've been curious about that for a while, and decided to hike up that ridge and see what it was all about.

1) Ernst Ridge with a pile of gray "tailings" (rock debris) from the mine shaft. Somewhere above that debris pile has to be the mine entrance itself, but you can't see it from down below.

2) After huffing and puffing up the hillside, I discovered the entrance, which is a horizontal shaft cut into the side of the mountain limestone.

3) Close-up of the opening, covered with a steel grate to prevent nuts like me from crawling inside. I would, too.

4) Photo of the inside of the tunnel, taken by putting my camera through the steel grate.

As usual, these hikes satisfy some curiosity, but then create even more questions:

- What were they digging for?
- Did they find it?
- How far back does the shaft go?
- How long ago was it dug?

I need to follow-up on this with the park geologist and see what he can tell me about it.

I'm told to assume that there must have been an outcropping of some valuable mineral or ore, which was discovered there. Then the shaft would have been dug to follow the vein back into the mountain.

[jdthomas 0]

more photos of a cool trip.. Here is a few of my camp out two weeks ago for you John.

www.greenboxphotography.com

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

more photos of a cool trip.. Here is a few of my camp out two weeks ago for you John.

It looks too cold for me!

That's a very cool hoodoo rock formation. Where is this?

[jdthomas 0]

the rock formation is outside of Kanopolis kansas at a place called Mushroom rocks state park.. there are just a small handfull of these formations in the middle of no where. Each rock has been craved upon with names and dates as the early settlers used them as refrence point of sorts.
Joe

www.greenboxphotography.com

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

the rock formation is outside of Kanopolis kansas at a place called Mushroom rocks state park.

That is neat stuff. That first, black one, looks like it was created by lava flow.

They call that kind of rock formation a hoodoo rock out in the desert. It's usually caused by a boulder sitting atop softer sediments. Weathering then washes away the soft stuff underneath, leaving the boulder sitting atop a tower of sediments. The sediments underneath the boulder are mostly protected from weathering, as the boulder acts like an umbrella.

Attached is my photo of the most famous one in Texas; Lighthouse Peak, in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, in north Texas.

[jdthomas 0]

lighthouse peak looks really neat and yes the mushroom rock is in all aspects a hoodoo. the top rock is a harder sandstone then the lower base.

You guys in texas have a vast landscape, maybe thats why it's a just like another country!

www.greenboxphotography.com

[JohnRich 4]

Miscellaneous camping photos.

1) The resident wild turkeys at one campground, poking around my tent, truck and canoe. They like to eat the smashed bugs out of the front grills of the vehicles parked there. Yuck!

2) Orange sunrise over black desert.

3) It's already getting dark in the gully where I'm camped, but off in the distance, lies purple mountain's majesty.

4) The sunrise hasn't reached us yet, but the not-too-distant mountain is already glowing orange in the morning sun.

[JohnRich 4]

More miscellaneous photos.

1) A buzzard airing out his wings atop a tall cottonwood tree.

2) The only deer I spotted on this trip. How many can you find?

3) Yucca busting out in bloom.

4) Unusual red swirl patterns in rock.